


Naakt Onder de Hemel

by heme



Category: Naruto
Genre: Canon Universe, M/M, Slight Canon Divergence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-28
Updated: 2020-05-28
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:28:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24425812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heme/pseuds/heme
Summary: Two opposites have a conversation. I will leave it to the discretion of the reader to decide the depth of the conversation.
Relationships: Deidara/Sasori (Naruto)
Kudos: 13





	Naakt Onder de Hemel

**Author's Note:**

> My first story.
> 
> Oneshot. I'm using SasoDei as a cover to spurt my thoughts on a couple of subjects. As always for controversial topics, here's a trigger warning. The title is taken from Blof's album with the identical name. 
> 
> I'm not a native speaker of English. In addition to this, I wrote this piece in the middle of the night when inspiration struck me. My apologies for any grammatical or spelling mistakes.
> 
> Feedback and comments are always appreciated.
> 
> Enjoy.

All characters belong to Masashi, Kishimoto

* * *

“Well, Sasori – no – Danna, for someone who overly values their precious time, isn’t it a bit out of your character to stare at the sky for so long?” Deidara smirked, breathing life into one of his clay butterflies. It flew around, soaring into airiness, until it is only a speckle of dust in the Iwa – rogue’s field of vision.

“Katsu!”

Colours precipitated down from the heavens, carried by the sudden wave of heat and pressure into sweet oblivion created by the abrupt explosion. The redhead was still unmoving on the tree stump, unfazed and undisturbed by the youngster’s brash display.

“Silence, brat. I have been waiting for the moment to ask you this question, now that my thoughts are organised, I can proceed.” The puppeteer’s head rotated a half circle towards the bomber, brown eyes staring into blue.

Obviously surprised by the sudden efflux of concealed emotions by a stoic figure, Deidara sat next to Sasori. He looked at the blades of grass besides his legs, unmoving – or are they moving along with the wind and sunlight? An explosion that he had just created can only destroy a certain amount, the air surrounding what was the butterfly was only pushed away, their existence still confirmed, only displaced. A couple flecks of glitter from his creation that now adorned the meadow stared back at him, seemingly teasing the blonde of his artistic imperfections.

Deidara grunted in annoyance at the ridicule. His face mutated into a devilish smirk after realising what was the older redhead hinting at. “So, Danna, what’s on your mind? Have you finally realised how mistaken your understanding of art is?” Being reminded of the previous mockery, the blonde ripped the glitter along with the blades of summer grass from the soil, and in a fit of rage, blew up the annoyances in his palms. The resultant explosion burned his hands, the lips of his hand – mouths contorted in pain as the surrounding skin turned from tan, then pink, and finally red. He grinned in pleasure after understanding that the singed skin will eventually fall off, with new skin replacing it. Though the old and stale may be dead and gone, the fresh and modern will still take the identical form of its predecessor. This cruelty – even Deidara’s own body decided to betray him by adhering to the past.

Sasori finally spoke in a whisper after much of his one – sided silence. “Transient… Eternal… Eternality is a fluid collection of an infinite number of transience. To be rid of transience in my artwork is self – defeating. For all your explosions that you claim to be art, you desire to create a lasting impact on your audience. To be rid of eternity in your artwork is also self – defeating.”

Deidara narrowed his eyes at the sudden insult. Only to realise that the insult was a double – edged sword, impaling both artists. “You’re awfully weird today, Danna. Could you get to the point quickly, un?”

The Suna – rogue sighed at his junior’s impertinence and impatience. “Your impatience is disturbing. Is it too much to ask for you to sit still and listen?” Deidara’s scowl now gone, the discovery of a fracture in the argument of his usually logically – sound partner sported a grin on his features.

“That’s very hypocritical of you, Danna, un. The infamously impatient _Akasuna no Sasori_ has finally pointed his finger to accuse someone of the same vice. I’m quite certain that the sun has risen out of the west for Sasori – no – Danna to do such a thing, un.” Deidara smirked lop – sidedly. Sasori only shook his head in response. Under normal circumstances, Sasori would have lashed out at the young blonde with his stinger already. But for the two to have such an impossible conversation, the situation must be abnormal.

“I am indeed hypocritical. To judge, where I am no Truth, is inherently hypocritical. I am my own reference; I string my own systems of causality. Yet, after seeing the intrinsic mixture of the two opposites: transient, yet eternal, in your art, I have started to doubt my ways.” Sasori gently cupped Deidara’s burnt hands between his wooden palms. The eerie inhuman coldness of Sasori’s hands is somewhat soothing, but underneath this façade of a being that is beyond human, exists the contradictory _namami no kaku_ that serves as a reminder of Sasori’s humanity. “My own existance is proof of the duality of mind and body. I am able to transfer my mind into inorganic materials, with my soul perfectly intact. Yet, animals cannot do the same. I would argue that the distinction that makes man rise above the ranks of animals is the existence of a mind. With the mind at one’s disposal, emotions and mathematical logic are accessible.” Deidara frowned, completely unprepared for this onslaught of seriousness. Still, he listened closely to Sasori.

“Puppets are dictated by mathematical logic. They can perform calculations, and they can sort through inputs. I am emotionally crippled by the _Shinobi_ world, that is why I chose to convert myself into a puppet – something that lacks emotion; mathematical logic is what dictates its movements. But in order to voluntarily abandon emotion, one must have emotions in the beginning. I believe, what makes humans different from puppets are emotions and free will. Hence, I converted myself into a puppet precisely because my humanity.”

The Iwa – rogue nodded in response. “Danna, you and I are both artists, un. For a piece to become art, it must be created with an intention, a meaning from the creator. If something is already predestined, it’s no longer a creation, but a subject of consequence.” The blonde’s thoughts skipped to another place, as if his focus is transient. “I remember the feeling of making a choice, un. I couldn’t have known the feeling otherwise if I haven’t experienced it. If an artist doesn’t have free will, their pieces cannot be called art.”

Strings of wind danced across the landscape. The flowing locks of the bomber jostled with air currents, tangling individual golden threads into knots of mathematical complexity. The puppeteer delicately used his fingers to comb through his partner’s hair, attempting to soothe the brash youngster of the upcoming derision, or rather, what will Deidara interpret as derision.

“Deidara,” The boy in question perked up his ears in response. It is surprising to hear that he was not addressed as simply “brat”, but by his name. “If you continue on your path further, your ego will be the cause of your demise.” Sasori murmured. As expected, the impulsive brat pulled away from Sasori’s hands, only to find out that the puppeteer has attached chakra threads onto his limbs to inhibit whatever thoughtless behaviour that the brat might pull out of his hand – mouths.

Deidara gnashed all four sets of his teeth after realising his humiliation at the hands of Sasori. “What’s the issue? If I continue to tread on my current path, I’ll become my own art!” The tongue of his chest mouth swirled in its hollow, obviously provoked by its owner’s uproar of emotions. Of course, his emotions were triggered by the denting of his ego.

The doll – faced redhead hummed lightly. He glided his fingers through the brat’s hair, searching for any additional knots in the brat’s unkempt hair. “If you are dead, even though the obnoxiously large explosion from it might become imprinted into the minds of some people, it will only be brushed away by them as a natural occurrence. Wouldn’t you prefer a greater number of audiences to admire your art and cower under its impact? If you actually let go of your stubbornness that is intertwined with your ego the size of a tailed – beast, you would discover that the amount of total audiences who appreciates your art will be greater if you continuously produce art for your natural lifetime.” In his confusion of anger and the dawning of realisation, Deidara grunted. His fellow artist has already noted the irony in his own path of eternity, why could not him do the same about his path of transience?

Sasori looked at his junior with fascination. A shinobi leaves no weaknesses exposed, and to a trained observer, his ego is a bullseye’s worth of weakness left open to be exploited indefinitely. Even though the process might hurt, far more so for the bomber than the puppeteer, the result is worth the trouble.

Deidara squeaked out a response as an answer to Sasori’s provocations. “Danna, you’re normally so nihilistic. What’s the point for a nihilistic man like you to care about me, un?”

“That goes to my other point. The only mature way for me to approach my so – called nihilism is to _nihilise_ itself. To become logically consistent, a nihilist must regard their own view as insignificant. Something that does not matter. I admit that my own nihilism is self – contradictory, but I have no real alternative to adopt. This cursed world, this cursed world of shinobi and its meaningless fights… I have no choice but to be nihilistic. I could say that I adopted art in an attempt to bestow meaning to my actions.”

Clouds in the heavens condensed themselves into wisps. Sunlight flittered down from above, reflecting and refracting through the atmosphere, finally gifting the land shadows of pale blossoms, with shapes unlike their source. The patches of soft darkness skimmed over the duo’s features, animating both men into lively statues. It is peculiar to how different the shadows are to the clouds – will one create a distorted image of a cloud based on the shadow? The five senses have the ability to bewilder their wielder, although their functions are to solely guide their owner to truth.

“So… is it to say that you actually care for me, Danna?” Deidara spoke. Sasori only shrugged in reaction. “As a _ninja_ ,” Sasori spat out the last word laced with heartfelt poison, “I will say that the only way for shinobi to abandon their conflicts is to level the playing ground through potential repercussions.”

The blonde furrowed his brows, raising one of them, “You sound just like leader – sama, un. With all his talks about ‘know pain’ and such.”

“Brat, both me and Pein are of similar age. We have seen enough to say that humans are a wretched species that are inherently evil. The greed innate to humans are insatiable. Only with a fallout the scale larger than the absolute value of the gain that could be acquired from the action of greed, a human will stop in their track of pursuing their target of greed. The genuine reason of why would the hidden villages spend large investments to hunt down the Akatsuki, is because the Akatsuki with the captured tailed – beasts, holds a dangerous amount of power that threatens the autocracy of the villages.” Sasori streamed his fingers through a nearby dandelion. It bounced against the contact of hard wooden fingers, despite the delicate touch that resembles so much of fingers of flesh. Sasori is incredibly human in a sense, and disturbingly inhuman in another.

Deidara twirled his fringe along two fingers. The strands of hair compressed and relaxed, swiveling against the rotatory driving force. Two directions: clockwise and anticlockwise. He hissed at the searing pain from his previous injury, at the same time, relishing in the surge of adrenaline obtained from the damage. “Danna?” He inquired.

“Yes?”

“Isn’t it a bit short – sighted to judge the shinobi world as a shinobi?”

Silence.

“The map is indeed not the territory.”

The blonde was left to ponder at the obscure words of his elder. “Sasori – no – Danna?”

“Yes?”

“Could you be a bit more explicit, yeah?”

“Very well, since you asked, brat. If one were to make sense out of information, it necessitates semantics. To comprehend sense out of an arbitrary set of data requires maps, maps we draft up in our mind. In order to create a map, one must have a reference. In this case, there are two choices available for us to select our point of reference. The first is to use yourself, and the second is to use a third – party that is the embodiment of truth.”

“So?”

“You should learn to put that mind of yours into good use, brat. Slouching there all day doing nothing is a waste of your life. Anyways, I am registered as a ninja, so by its definition, I am a shinobi. I judge my surroundings via a system that I created. I follow the general rules of what it means to be a shinobi. My system can navigate me through this shinobi world, but it cannot explain what exactly induced this navigation. That is what I meant by my previous statement.”

“Danna, I hope that I could survive until the day where there is a solution that proposes of rationalising this contradiction in both directions.” Deidara stole a glance at Sasori, who stared back at him, intrigued.

“I too, desire the perfect apophysis.” Sasori spoke. “I will hold you to the promise that you will survive until the day that this could be seen.”

Deidara grinned. “Whatever you say, Danna. Like you’ve said to me right at the beginning, nothing is truly eternal. It’s more likely that both of us won’t survive until that day, given the circumstances of this world, un.”

The Suna – rogue stood up. He brushed off the specks of dirt stuck on his robe, and turned towards Deidara. “Is that… the truth?”

“What?” Deidara inquired with evident confusion.

“Nothing. A day that challenged both of our artforms to its full extent is harrowing.”

“And also exhausting.”

“What?”

“From all the thinking, un.”

“You’re just saying that because of your inferior mind.”

Deidara stuck out all three of his exposed tongues towards Sasori. He sculpted a clay owl in a ritualistic fashion, and it puffed up to multiple times of its original size when the bomber signaled the sign of confrontation. “I guess so, Danna. I call you Danna for a reason, un. Now climb up here, yeah! Don’t keep me waiting.” Deidara added the last sentence to make a spontaneous parody at Sasori’s impatience, with a cheeky smirk for extra impact.

Sasori reacted with a blank stare as he clambered upon the flying steed.

True and false. Two opposites.

For something to be true, it must be the set of all truth that one could reference any statement against.

If one were to verify truth, it must be highlighted against falsity.

Truth is the combination of all truth and falsity.

True and false. One entity.

The owl soared into the heavens, leaving the landscape in all its natural glory. Across the meadow a breeze polished the grass, smoothing all previous history of the artists’ presence on this land. Their presence is fleeting, yet eternal as the universe has bear witness to all history.

Ironic indeed.

And Truth is found in irony.


End file.
